Dani Alves is serving a year in prison: the idol who lost everything and his wife’s decision a few days before the trial

In this last year, he who has been locked up in a prison Barcelona accused of raping a 23-year-old girl, Daniele Alves he lost everything.

The former Brazilian full-back, who until August last year – when Leo Messi equaled him – was the player who had won the most cups in the history of football, remained without millionaire contracts and an orphan of a large part of his family who no longer accompanies him today.

In provisional prison – and without bail – since January 20 last year, Alves is burning the hours in module 13 of the Brians II prison in Catalonia, serving the remaining days until the trial.

The former Sevilla and Barça player will be tried in section 21 of the Barcelona court, between February 5th and 7th.

For the alleged sexual assault that occurred in the bathroom of a booth at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona, ​​the Prosecutor’s Office is asking for a 9-year prison sentence. For the defense of the girl who reported him, the sentence should be greater: Dani Alves should serve 12 years in prison.

More serene than a year ago, when he arrived in prison and almost didn’t eat or watch television, the former captain of Brazil at the last World Cup -Qatar ’22- Today he has adapted to the prison routine.

He celebrated his 40th birthday behind bars and passed on his passion for football to his fellow students. all convicted of sex crimes.

A year ago, almost no one played sports among the inmates of Module 13 at Brians II. Today everyone plays football or volleyball.

Alves himself told it the only interview he gavefor now, from prison to a Spanish media outlet, the Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia, in June last year.

There he covered, once again, one of many stories – five to date – of what happened in the early hours of December 31, 2022 in the stand on the first floor of the Sutton nightclub, in Carrer de Tuset in Barcelona.

“If that night they tell me that a young woman accuses me of rape, I go to the police station,” Alves told La Vanguardia.

Six months earlier, as soon as the complaint broke out, the then Mexico Pumas player had sent a video to a Spanish television channel, Antena 3, ensuring that he had never seen the girl who had reported him.

“I was in that place, enjoying it, but without invading other people’s space. I don’t know who that lady is. “I don’t know her, I don’t know her name,” she said.

But while the evidence from the nightclub cameras and the tests of the genetic material provided by the girl on the stained dress she wore that night transformed the versions of Alves, the foreigner who played more matches with Barça after Messi was losing millions.

The first were those signed for a year to play with the Pumas of the University of Mexico: between 1.5 and 2 million dollars seasoned with percentages of advertising and merchandising sales.

As soon as Alves slept in prison, the club terminated his contract and demanded compensation of five million dollars for non-compliance with the agreement.

From then on the Brazilian only received bad news.

Every three months he billed between 30 and 50 thousand euros for the use of his image, which then disappeared.

Adidas, with whom he was supposed to renew his contract after the World Cup in Qatar, did not want to hear from him and the sports betting company 1xPartner left the agreement with Dani Alves, who was its “ambassador”, “pending”. .

From Brazil, the insurance and financial services company Hygia Saúde has severed its business relations with the player. Clothing brand Ethika has solved the same thing.

Compensation no, compensation yes

In Spain, the Alves scandal has maintained, from the beginning, the anonymity of the girl who had reported having been raped by the former footballer.

The only thing that emerged at that moment was that the young woman renounced compensation, as required by the Spanish penal code. She just wanted her attacker to be imprisoned.

Then Change of mind: Today her defense lawyer, Ester García, is asking, in addition to the 12-year prison sentence, for compensation of 150 thousand euros for the physical and psychological consequences suffered by the young woman.

His anonymity didn’t last either. A few weeks ago, the former player’s mother, Maria Lucia Alvespublished a video on his social networks with images of the alleged victim.

The footage shows scenes of a young woman dancing with friends, images that Alves’ mother compared with paragraphs of newspaper reports that highlight the trauma she experienced after the sexual assault.

The Catalan Prosecutor’s Office is studying the video reported by the lawyer García. “Identifying a victim of sexual assault is a flagrant crime,” he said.

Alves’ defense

In one year, Dani Alves has provided five different versions of what happened that night in 2022 and changed his defense lawyer three times.

He went from denying everything to admitting that he had had consensual sexual intercourse with the young woman who had reported him.

Clarion He contacted the firm defending him today. The founder is Inés Guardiola, a well-known lawyer in Catalonia.

“He will not make any statements for now,” his secretary said.

Guardiola’s last move was to present a statement, three weeks before the start of the trial, arguing that Dani Alves was drunk that night at the Sutton nightclub. If found guilty, having acted under the influence of alcohol and with his faculties clouded by drunkenness could mitigate the sentence.

I love you I hate you

Dani Alves’ personal life was also destroyed fragments.

A few days after her arrest, the Spanish model Joana Sanzwho married the Brazilian in 2017 on the dream island of Formentera, published a handwritten letter announcing her separation from Alves.

He also filed for divorce but Dani denied it.

Joana stopped visiting him frequently in Brians II. In November, on a television program, she confessed: “I’m still there for him and I will continue to be there forever, the future will tell. “We continue to talk on the phone as if nothing had happened, we support each other as best we can.”

The latest news on the case: Joana will be present at the trial and will give a deposition.

Family strategy

Alves’ first wife, Dinorah Santana, believed in his innocence. “One hundred percent and I have no doubts,” she told Spanish television.

He even announced that he will move from Brazil to Barcelona with his children from the former player, two teenagers aged 16 and 15, to be close to him and support him.

It was part of Alves’ defensive strategy which required, once again, the publication of the former footballer. If the Spanish justice system verified that her children had roots in Spain and that there was no danger of them fleeing – the fear was that they would take refuge in Brazil, a country that does not extradite its citizens even if they have committed crimes abroad – it could not release him on parole until trial.

Dani Alves, however, never obtained permission to be released.

AS, his first wife felt used. “They asked us to move and we would move. I looked for a school (for her children). We had been in prison and then they immediately denied him parole. And he disappeared. It was just like that,” Dinorah said, furious.

On the night, precisely from 30 to 31 December 2022, the Brazilian so loved by world football fell into the void from the summit that only idols enjoy. He just has to say, in front of a court, what really happened that morning.